SHEPHERDSTOWN, ON THE POTOMAC. 



SKETCH SECOND — INTRODUCING VARIOUS PEOPLE. 



BY MRS. F. R. GROTE. 



THIRTY YEARS AGO, in passing from a Northern to a Southern 

 I State, there was a change of more than latitude. The change 

 from Maryland to Florida was infinitely less than from Massachu- 

 setts to Maryland. When a Marylander left his own State and trav- 

 elled down to Florida, he only went to a different part of his own country; 

 but when he went to Massachusetts he found himself among people 

 quite different from those to whom he was accustomed, and he did 

 not take kindly to them. What he saw of them — and that was little, 

 for he was too prejudiced to try to see more — he liked no more than 

 what he had heard of them — which was a great deal, and always of 

 an unpleasant character. Their high voices grated on his nerves ; 

 their methodical ways, and, what seemed to him, petty economies, 

 offended his taste ; he felt smothered in their small, compact rooms, 

 each with its one door and two windows; and nothing, nothing could 

 reconcile him to codfish — or to trade. 



They, on the contrary, liked him. Southerners, collectively and 

 from heresay, they did not like, nor could they approve of them ; but 

 this particular Southerner, with his gracious manner, his careless 

 way of speaking of money, a certain picturesqueness about his at- 

 tire and himself generally, they did like. Notwithstanding his 

 gracious ways, he had a haughty air too, which warned off triflers; 

 and there were vague stories of his dexterity in the use of fire arms ; 

 and of duels that bad been fought, which invested him with awe, 

 and added to the admiration in which he was held. Constitutional 

 haters of slavery as they were, no opprobrium attached to his name 

 on account of the slaves he was known to hold. In short, although 

 his institutions were utterly abhorrent to them and his character as 

 opposed to all their notions of right and wrong, as it well could be, 

 and although there were a few who never succumbed, holding all his 



